Clean Eating And Blue Apron

When the new school year approaching and knowing that I’ll be working a lot more this year than last, I wanted to streamline my clean eating a bit. I have mentioned before that clean eating is more expensive than eating foods with tons of preservatives, salt, and other not so good things. I also knew that other than time I needed a way to cut back on my grocery bill a little. I enjoy cooking and trying new recipes but I hate grocery shopping and making lists with foods that I am unfamiliar with. In walks the idea of trying Blue Apron.

My sister tried it and enjoyed it, my roommate tried it and even shared a meal with me. So I understood the concept and new what it was about. I wondered if I could eat clean on Blue Apron or if I needed to try a more expensive meal program (with a cleaner eating plan)…but if I did that I wouldn’t be saving money.

When I turned to my clean eating Facebook group, that I joined when I began this journey, and asked them their thoughts I was encouraged not to try it. That clean eating was manageable if I really wanted to do it. I actually felt a little beaten up by their advice and how they gave it. Being the person I am I decided to try it anyway. They gave no more reason for me not to try it, other than that they were able to plan and prep on their weekends. So I ignored their advice and signed up…. I think that I had already planned on trying it even if they didn’t agree with it. 🙂

So my first week of Blue Apron was great! I saved money, had amazing meals, and I am soooo looking forward to my second week (comes today!!!). A few downsides was that most of the meals do have bread. What I did was just didn’t use the bread. I decided to give away my bread to my friends (they were happy and excited to accept).

This recipe called for croutons… I just didn’t add them to the salad.

I have found that when you do clean eating with Blue Apron you do have to attempt to stay away from certain meals. Such as sandwiches, maybe BBQ meals (because most BBQ sauces have added sugar…but I am not certain about Blue Apron sauces.) and other meals that are heavy in sauces. So you are limited a bit in what meals you can choose but there are plenty clean eaters can eat. I really enjoyed my first weak. It got me trying new things and different types of foods as well as cooking methods that i would never have done on my own. It also ensures that I try new meals every so often rather than eating the same meals over and over again…which I end up doing when I am on my own for cooking.

So this was very different in the meal. It was an open sandwich corn meal. I decided to use a potato in my pantry as the base (instead of bread) and then put the salad and corn together. Really it makes a giant but tasty salad.

So if you are thinking of clean eating and/or Blue Apron the downside I found is that you are limited some weeks to meals and you might have to get creative with meals that call for bread. In my mind the positives completely outweigh the negatives. So I am going to keep my deliveries coming until I decided otherwise. 🙂

Didn’t have to change anything with this meal. (it did call for a little butter and I am not certain about wine vinegar but considering most clean eaters have a 20/80 eating plan I let it slide for this meal.)